The funeral is sparse and spare. There isn't much time to plan, nor is there much time to mourn.
No family comes to see the remains. Steve hears someone whisper that there was once a wife and a couple of children, but they were killed years ago in a prisoner of war camp. Nobody knows if there are any other relatives. The doctor's city has already long been razed by the war. Anyone left would be scattered by now. Steve feels helplessly angry at it all. It seems so incredibly unfair, but then life often is.

Howard Stark provides the capital for a nice casket, a headstone, and some flowers for the deceased - but there's little more that can be done to ease the passing. Cursory military honors, a half-hearted procession, and a swift red-eyed burial in a small, quiet cemetery in Queens see Erskine to his final resting place.

Steve is quietly furious throughout, his objections that the late doctor deserved better than this having been loudly and decisively overruled by disinterested Army brass. He's been informed that he'll face court-martial if he doesn't shut up and let it go, which in any other circumstances would only wind him up the more. It's only the belief that he's doing this for a reason, that the war effort needs him, that keeps Steve's mouth shut. Grudgingly.

Dr. Erskine had certainly been well liked by his peers, and Agent Carter is clearly no better pleased at his treatment than anyone else, but she can do nothing more about it than Steve can.

There is still a war going on, and the powers that be are rattled by both the brazenness of the assault and the level of technology the enemy possesses. They don't have much concern to spare over one turncoat German, no matter how much he may have done for the war effort. Steve positively burns with the unfairness of it all.


They take sample after sample of his blood a few hours after the last shovelfull of earth is laid, hoping to reproduce the program. Silent and still reeling, Steve cooperates.

Peggy tells him that if the program had to work only once, Erskine would've been glad it was on him.
Steve doesn't answer. He just feels hollow inside.
The feeling never quite goes away.